Date: 27th December, 2025
Message: Bearing your Yoke in Singlehood
Minister: Pastor Mike Ogunoye
Singleness is not a curse. It is the first estate Adam found himself when he was created. It is not a sign that we have a problem or that our lives aren’t moving forward. It is also not an estate to hurry or rush out of. It is an estate that God himself made provision for, and in that estate, there are expectations of God for us.
(1 Cor. 7:20) “Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called.” – God does not expect us to attempt to change our estates by ourselves. Our estates are like our fashion and we must learn to adapt to our fashion until God deems it fit. This is the only way we do not end up doing damage to our fashion. We can see from the angels who fell, it was because they did not abide in their estate in heaven (Jude 1:6).
Just like singleness is an estate, marriage is also an estate. The transition from the single estate to the married estate should be mediated by God. How well our marriage estate will be will be determined by the quality of our single estate. How well our marriages will turn out is dependent on the foundation of our single estate.
The foundation for marriage is not essentially romance but the nature of the two parties coming together as one. A lot of people treat marriage as the best thing to happen to a man, but this isn’t entirely true. It can also be the worst thing that can happen to a man. For example, Adam had some things in his single estate that he lost when he got married. Marriage if not well handled can lead to one’s downfall.
When we see people who have failed marriages, we should be careful not to think the same can never happen to us, but we should be humble and know we are not better than them. If people fail at their marriage, we should know it can also happen to us if God doesn’t show us mercy. We must embrace the provisions of God with humility of heart.
It is good to know that most problems couples in marriage experience are majorly due to unsolved problems experienced in singlehood. As exciting as the idea of being married is, that excitement cannot keep a marriage if we don’t spend our single years building capacity to run our next estate.
Singleness is an estate ordained by God. God designed it to be a phase before marriage. We should use the estate of singlehood well before we transition into marriage. God uses our single estate to make us single.
There is a lot of crisis in marriage we are now seeing amidst young people because people who should still be under the supervision of their parents are getting married. Many of them did not use their estate of singleness well before crossing into the next estate.
The first marriage that happened is between Adam and Eve. From their marriage, we can see that marriage is ordained for two people who do not have sin. Marriage should be a coupling of two sinless people together. Adam was joined and cleaved to his wife until sin came in (Gen 3:11-13). Before sin came in, Adam had cleaved to his wife. Cleaving is to be so joined you do not see a difference between yourselves in a sense. He saw her as himself, and didn’t see a difference between himself and his wife, but as soon as sin entered, he highlighted his wife’s fault in disobedience to God (Gen. 3:12). Before sin, Adam saw Eve as the bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, he did not see her as different from him but this changed after sin came into the picture. Sin fractured something in their union.
Marriage indeed is between two sinless people. However, sinlessness isn’t the essence of marriage; the essence of marriage is Salvation. Before we get married, the sin load ought to have reduced significantly if not we won’t be able to go far.
If God does not use our singlehood to purify us, we will use marriage to satisfy our own lusts and not use it for the purpose of salvation.
It’s expedient we use our singlehood well, because it’s the nature we have as a single that we will carry into marriage. We will not suddenly become humble when we get married. If we harbor anger as a single, when we get married, we will also express it.
Being single speaks about oneness, it’s a time for wholeness, because marriage will reveal how scattered we are in our soul. This makes it such that the best way to prepare for marriage is to grow spiritually; to change state.
This is not to say that we have to be perfect before we marry, but we would have resolved a lot of issues before we get married. There are some issues that will only be treated when we are married. Marriage ought to be for perfection of work already begun in us whilst we were single. We must allow the Lord to deal with some issues in us before we get married.
The first people who got married were sinless, but now, people marry in sin. So we have two goals to achieve. First to achieve sinlessness, then salvation. We must trust the Lord to reduce our sin load before getting married. For example, we must have the Christ ability to forgive over and over and over again, before we enter into marriage. A single person who has the inability to forgive will have a marriage that is almost dead on arrival. The ability to forgive should have been installed at singlehood. Another infirmity we should trust the Lord to deal with in us, is this world. It must have been purged considerably.
The essence of marriage is not romance, it’s redemption. It is not good to handle marriage only from the romance or mushy part. Marriage isn’t just to make us happy, it’s to make us holy. The romance in marriage is there to spice up the marriage, but it’s not the goal. Just like with food, we can eat our food without necessarily needing the spice for nourishment, they are only an addition to spice up the marriage.
When we hear Jesus teaching on marriage, you will almost not want to marry again. This is because Jesus handles marriage teachings more from the responsibility and redemptive part rather than from the mushy/romance angle (Matt. 19:10).
(Lam. 3:27-28) – “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. 28 He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.”
The main thing to do when we are single is to bear the yoke in our youth. The yoke is the same yoke Jesus referred to in Matthew 11:29, when he said we should take up his yoke. The yoke we bear will determine our direction. The yoke of Christ we carry is what differentiates us from the yoke and aspirations of the dead. Our yoke will determine our movement and how fast our pace is. This is why scripture says we shouldn’t be unequally yoked with unbelievers ( 2 Cor 6:14).
It is good we do not make the decisions on who to marry before we bear the yoke of Christ. We should allow the yoke to inform whom we marry. Bearing the yoke is what makes us have the same vision God has for us. Our yoke should be the hope of the Lord. Our hope should be what the Lord exists for. The first sign we will see when we bear the yoke is soberness. He sitteth alone and keepeth silence (Lam. 3:28).
In a generation where people are loud on social media, if we bear the yoke, we will be sober, and quiet due to the weight of the yoke upon us. The yoke will cut off superfluity of naughtiness (Jam. 1:21). This quietness or soberness is not the same as someone who just is a naturally quiet person. This is borne from bearing the yoke and we need to bear the yoke in our youth.
One of the things that will put our whole life together is the yoke of Jesus. It will make us live for one thing. This will keep us from being scattered in many things. Growth will make us see life as one. When we were children, we spoke, we understood and thought as a child, but when we grow and mature, we will seek one thing (1 Cor. 13:11). When we see life as one, we have been gathered together.
Also, we need to overcome other loves which are secrets in our heart if we are to fulfill God’s purpose in marriage. We can secretly love ourselves, privacy, body shape, money etc even more than our spouse and the Lord. Other loves in our heart above our spouse is a time bomb in marriage. Charity is the wisdom and the judgment of God to deal with other loves in our hearts because Charity will empower us to love selflessly. Some people do not like the charity kind of love.
The time of our singlehood is a time we should bear the yoke, even the yoke of Salvation. This yoke will gather our lives into one. Our singlehood should be a time we master the leading of the spirit. If we don’t use the leading of the spirit as singles, we will struggle to understand the seasons we are in and it will show in our inability to manage pressures of life.
Another mistake we make is to leverage so much on the opinions of others and what people will say forgetting that we only have one whom we have to do (Heb. 4:13).
Singlehood is a time to pray more. It’s a time to cultivate a relationship with God that will last us a lifetime. It is not the time to worry and be agitated about who to marry. As men, it’s a time to master God’s unique way of leading us in decision making, because in marriage, there are tons of decisions we would have to make that can make or mar the entire family. As women, it’s time to make good relationships and friendships with brethren. A woman who is always needy is scattered. It might appear as love, but it’s not correct. A woman should make friends, she should relate with other brethren and not put all her burdens on her husband. We should spend our singlehood bonding with the brethren.
Satan knows we will all get married, and he knows we need capacity to carry the burden of marriage, but he will distract us, and bombard us with thoughts on who to marry, or when to marry, so we won’t focus on our building and develop the capacity required for us to handle marriage successfully.
Singleness is for wholeness. Indeed, we don’t need a spouse to complete us because we ought already be complete in Christ (Col. 2:10). The mystery of marriage is 2 complete people becoming one.
Brothers should not need a constant need for validation of manhood. Deal with any low self esteem and inferiority complex. We shouldn’t use marriage as a way to rank up our self esteem. We need to enjoy the leading of the spirit for wholeness.
Where marriage is leading to is salvation. It will make us a better person, and appreciate our nature in Christ. The things that won’t allow us to grow and change in marriage is as a result of our upbringing which the Lord will deal with. After we leave our parent’s home and get married, we enter into the hands of the Holy Ghost for a second level of parenting, to work on us and prevent us from carrying our dysfunctional nature that can destroy our marriage. Challenges that spoil marriage will increase in days to come but we must be committed to growing. Our growing will call for what we need.
There is an antimarriage campaign all over; now is not the time to consume content of women who are anti marriage and pro divorce. We are for marriage in our community. If you marry well, you will become better.
As brothers, we should develop our capacity. Husbands should love their wives (Eph. 5:25). Love covers the multitude of sins (1 Pet. 4:8). The person we will marry will have plenty of faults, we should learn to overlook them in love. We need the capacity to overlook faults no matter how many. This is also how the Lord is relating with us, he doesn’t count our sins.
Submission under spiritual authority is key in our formation both as a brother and as a married man. We shouldn’t be brothers pastors in the church do not know about. We should learn to integrate well. Be a brother that can be sent on an errand. Be useful to the brethren, the church, and to the Pastor.
As sisters, we don’t know who we will marry. It could be a minister. Whomsoever we will marry has been determined even before we were born. It is a privilege to be married to a Pastor. We will die more, and we will also live more so don’t fight it if it’s God’s will for you.
Anger is a cursed nature, we must deal with this in our single hood if we struggle with this. By the leading of the spirit and the preaching of the word, our infirmities will be dealt with.
In singlehood we should be holy. We should give ourselves to the word.
We should be holy in body and spirit (1 Cor. 7:34). A sign that you are still scattered is in your inability to control your sexual urges. Marriage won’t cure it. We lose a lot when we engage in sexual sins, and one of the major things we will lose is the vitality of our body. Sexual urges aren’t the strongest desire in the body of a man, but hunger for food. If we can withhold ourselves and fast from food, then we can also hold our body against sexual activities. The Holy Ghost can help us. The answer to fornication is growth.
Tongues and Interpretation
Even long standing issues,
I would do a short work,
I would judge them quickly,
For you see the years the cankerworm has eaten, I am bringing restoration,
You will overtake and you will recover by the reason of the work I would do shortly,
There is so much to recover, there is a lot of ground to still cover,
I am doing a short work for recovery,
I am doing a short work for restoration,
I am harnessing all the blessings that I have in-store for you,
It is beyond marriage,
There is so much that I have, not just as thoughts, that I want to bring to manifestation, they are thoughts of good,
There is an end and by reason of the short work I would do, I would bring you closer to that destination,
I am not afraid of your long standing issues, they do not scare or trouble me at all,
I would judge them quickly and do a work stronger than the work that has been done,
Oh that your heart may be open.
THE END.